Yahoo Finance Moderna, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:MRNA) large institutional owners must be happy as stock continues to impress, up 5.9% over the past week
Key Insights
Significantly high institutional ownership implies Moderna's stock price is sensitive to their trading actions
A total of 10 investors have a majority stake in the company with 50% ownership
Ownership research along with analyst forecasts data help provide a good understanding of opportunities in a stock
A look at the shareholders of Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 69% to be precise, is institutions. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk).
And as as result, institutional investors reaped the most rewards after the company's stock price gained 5.9% last week. One-year return to shareholders is currently 23% and last week’s gain was the icing on the cake.
Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Moderna, beginning with the chart below.
Check out our latest analysis for Moderna
What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Moderna?
Institutions typically measure themselves against a benchmark when reporting to their own investors, so they often become more enthusiastic about a stock once it's included in a major index. We would expect most companies to have some institutions on the register, especially if they are growing.
We can see that Moderna does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of Moderna, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too.
Since institutional investors own more than half the issued stock, the board will likely have to pay attention to their preferences. Hedge funds don't have many shares in Moderna. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Baillie Gifford & Co. with 12% of shares outstanding. The Vanguard Group, Inc. is the second largest shareholder owning 10% of common stock, and BlackRock, Inc. holds about 6.6% of the company stock. In addition, we found that Stephane Bancel, the CEO has 5.5% of the shares allocated to their name.
On further inspection, we found that more than half the company's shares are owned by the top 10 shareholders, suggesting that the interests of the larger shareholders are balanced out to an extent by the smaller ones.
Researching institutional ownership is a good way to gauge and filter a stock's expected performance. The same can be achieved by studying analyst sentiments. There are plenty of analysts covering the stock, so it might be worth seeing what they are forecasting, too.
Insider Ownership Of Moderna
While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.
Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.
Shareholders would probably be interested to learn that insiders own shares in Moderna, Inc.. Insiders own US$5.7b worth of shares (at current prices). Most would say this shows a good alignment of interests between shareholders and the board. Still, it might be worth checking if those insiders have been selling.
General Public Ownership
The general public-- including retail investors -- own 21% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.
Next Steps:
I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too.
Many find it useful to take an in depth look at how a company has performed in the past. You can access this detailed graph of past earnings, revenue and cash flow.
If you would prefer discover what analysts are predicting in terms of future growth, do not miss this free report on analyst forecasts.
NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
